The sacred and the spiritual: they should mean much the same, but here the connotations are somewhat different. Marian Anderson also used a rather different kind of voice-production: for the Bach and Handel, a consciously trained, finely controlled art with an element of quick, generally unobtrusive, vibrato, and for the spirituals a more relaxed method, with warmer tone, less ‘classical’ vibrancy but (if anything) a still more generous resonance. Yet in some degree the two genres come to meet each other in her singing, for the sacred arias stimulate a keener sense of rhythm than they did with most of her contemporaries, and the spirituals, with their drawing-room piano accompaniment and legato singing-style, move closer to European art-song. For modern expectations perhaps neither will quite suffice. Her ‘classical’ singing is very unlike that which predominates in the early music schools of the present, and the spirituals will (I imagine) seem too placid and too conditioned by the European ideal of beautiful sound to satisfy the ‘ethnic’ specialist. Listening to these records, in fact, it is as well to shed or suspend a whole lot of preconceptions, and enjoy on its own terms what a very great singer has to offer.
One of her gifts, well brought out in this selection, is that of variety, or perhaps of adaptability. The text of the first Bach aria, “Jesus schlaft” from Cantata No. 81 combines hopefulness and mourning, and the voice is serious and compassionate. Then, with “Zum reinen Wasser” (Cantata No. 112), the tone lightens, the face is bright: a remarkable transformation has come about, and the same kind of thing is found in the spirituals, as when the deep contralto of Trampin’ is followed by the near-soprano of Oh, what a beautiful city. These records, made within a period of ten years, find the singer in her prime, the voice ranging so freely over two octaves, lovely and distinctive in quality, directed with taste and feeling. The Bach arias and several of the spirituals remained unissued on 78s in this country, and are transferred here from fine copies in a way that, for those who heard Marian Anderson only in her later, declining years, will restore to its full glory the voice which earned such a very special place in history.'